The following are the objectives of job evaluation :
(i) To secure and maintain complete, accurate and impersonal descriptions of each distinct job or occupation in the entire plant;
(ii) To provide a standard procedure for determining the relative worth of each job in a plant;
(iii) To determine the rate of pay for each job which is fair and equitable with relation to other jobs in the plant, community or industry;
(iv) To ensure that like wages are paid to all qualified employees for like work;
(v) To promote a fair and accurate consideration of all employees for advancement and transfer; (vi) To provide a
factual basis for the consideration of wage rates for similar jobs in a community and industry; and
(vii) To provide‘ information for work organisation, employees‘ ‗selection, placement, training and numerous other similar problems.
In fact the primary purpose of job evaluation is to set wages. It does this by providing a basis for the following matters:
(a) Equity and objectivity of salary administration, ie., paying the people whose work is alike the same wages, and establishing appropriate wage differentials between jobs calling for different skills and responsibilities;
(b) Effective wage and salary control;
(c) Union-management negotiations on wages; and
(d) Comparison of wage and salary rates with those of other employees.
Besides setting wages, job evaluation also help in :
(a) Providing standardisation and improvement of working conditions;
(b) Clarifying the functions, authority and responsibility of employees;
(c) Establishing references for the settlement of grievances arising out of individual rates and for negotiations with a trade union on internal wage structure and differentials;
(d) Developing machinery for a systematic reviewing of job rates as job contents change; and
(e) Developing personnel statistics.
Principles of Job Evaluation
There are certain broad principles, which should be kept in mind before putting the job evaluation programme into practice. These principles are :
(i) Rate the job and not the man. Each element should be rated on the basis of what the job itself requires.
(ii) The elements selected for, rating purposes should be easily explainable in terms and as few in number as will cover the necessary requisites for every job without any overlapping. (iii) The elements should be clearly defined and properly selected. (iv) Any job rating plan must be sold to forcemen and employees.
The success in selling it will depend on a clear-cut-cut explanation and illustration of the plan.
(v) Foremen should participate in the rating of jobs in their own departments.
(vi) Maximum co-operation can be obtained from employees when they themselves have an opportunity to discuss job ratings.
(vii) In talking to foremen and employees, any discussion of money value should be avoided. Only point values and degrees of each element should be discussed.
(viii) Too many occupational wages should not be established. It would be unwise to adopt an occupational wage for each total of point values.
Advantages of Job Evaluation
Job evaluation enjoys the following advantages :
(i) Job evaluation is a logical and to some. extent an objective method of ranking jobs relative to one another. It may help in removing inequalities in existing wage structures and in maintaining sound and consistent wag differentials a plant or industry.
(ii) In the case of new jobs, the method often facilitates fitting them into the existing wage structure.
(iii) The method helps in removing grievances arising out of relative wages; and it improves labour-management relations.
(iv) The method replaces the many accidental factors, occurring in less systematic procedures, of wage bargaining by more impersonal and objective standards, thus establishing a clear basis for negotiations.
(v) The method may lead to greater uniformity in wage rates, thus simplifying wage adminstration.
(vi) The information collected in the process of job description and analysis may a1so be used for the improvement of selection, transfer and promotion procedures on the basis of comparative job requirements.
(vii) Such information also reveals that workers are engaged on jobs requiring less skill and other qualities than they possess, thereby pointing to the possibility of making more efficient me of the plants‘ labour force;
Methods of Job Evaluation :
The following are the methods of Job Evaluations
1. Ranking Method : The ranking method requires a
committee typically composed of both management and employee representatives of job in a simple rank order, from highest to lowest. Rating specialists review the job analysis information and thereafter appraise each job subjectively according to its general importance in comparison with other jobs. In other words, an overall judgment is made of the relative worth of each job, and the job is ranked accordingly. These are overall rankings, although raters may consider individually the responsibility, skill, effort, and working conditions and each job. No attempt is made to determine the critical factors in each job. Therefore, it is quite possible that important elements of some jobs may be overlooked while unimportant items are weighed too heavily. It may be noted that because of the difficulties in ranking a large number of jobs at the
time, the paired comparison technique of ranking is sometimes used. With this technique, decisions are made about the relative worth of only two jobs at a time. However, since each job is compared with every other jobs, the number of comparisons to be made increases rapidly with the addition of each job to the list.
2. Job Grading or Job Classification Method : This method
works by assigning each job a grade, level or class that corresponds to a pay grade for instance Grade I, Grade II, Grade III and so forth. These grades or classifications are created by identifying gradations of some common denominations, such as job responsibility, skill, knowledge, education required, and so on. Then, for each job grade so created standard job descriptions are determined. Thereafter, such standard description is matched with job descriptions in the organisation. The standard description that most nearly matches the job description determines the job‘s grading. This method requires a decision at the initial stage on the number of pay grades to be included in the wage and salary plan. Of course, the actual amount to be assigned to pay grades made after the job evaluation is completed.
3. Factor-comparison Method : This method is a combination
of ranking and point systems. All jobs are compared to each other for the purpose of determining their relative importance by selecting four or five major job elements or factors which are more or less common to all jobs. These elements are not predetermined. These are chosen on the basis of job analysis. The few factors which are customarily used are :
(i) mental requirements (ii) skill (iii) physical requirements (iv) responsibilities (v) working conditions, etc.
A few jobs are selected as key jobs which serve as standard against which all other jobs are compared. key job is one whose contents have been stabilised over a period of time and whose wage rate is considered to be presently correct by the management and the union.
Evaluation of Various Methods : None of the systems is free
from defects. None is the best in all conditions and for all types of organisations. However, the point system is the best in the present circumstances. It is widely used in almost all the enterprises as a technique of job evaluation since it presents an analytical approach to the measurement of job worth. It is better not to insist on a particular system of job evaluation. A mix of all the methods should be adopted.